


Waiting to Be Found

by speckledsolanaceae



Category: ATEEZ (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-04 00:10:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,745
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21188300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/speckledsolanaceae/pseuds/speckledsolanaceae
Summary: Everyone's Tell is different, but this one is surely the worst.





	Waiting to Be Found

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CountBuckula](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CountBuckula/gifts).

It was two in the morning and Hongjoong couldn’t sleep.

He was _trying_—he’d taken melatonin and everything, which he’d bought in the first place because this was such a frequent occurrence he was going absolutely bonkers.

“Hope your soulmate knows they’re getting decked as soon as you know who they are,” Seonghwa said, leaning back in his chair and pressing the capped end of his pen against his lips. He’d been pulling an all-nighter to study for some random gen ed final Hongjoong couldn’t remember.

Hongjoong groaned, gripping his hair hard enough to start premature balding. “What in the fuck are they _doing_?” 

“Maybe you can go one a run?” Seonghwa suggested with the tone of someone who was pretending they hadn’t suggested that some fifty times already.

“I’m not going on a run at two A.M., Mars! I don’t like running!” 

Instead, Hongjoong stuffed his face in his pillow and wished for death.

Since eleven o’clock, every night for the past week, without fail, Hongjoong’s entire body had been shot full of adrenaline. For four. Fucking. Hours.

Everyone’s soulmate connection manifested differently—it wasn’t even the same between soulmates. Some people tasted whatever their soulmate was tasting, like Seonghwa (which is why he knew by about nineteen that his soulmate was either gay as hell or one hell of a lady). Others heard snippets of their soulmate’s strongest thoughts (Mingi, who startled really badly every few hours sometimes when his soulmate was on a roll). For Hongjoong, all he knew was that he got shot full of adrenaline whenever his soulmate was excited? Working out? Happy? Who the fuck knew, honestly.

“I mean, can I really blame them?” Hongjoong said.

“If you want me to reply you’re going to have to not mutter into your pillow.”

Hongjoong turned his head and tried again. “They don’t know that their late-night trysts affect me, so like, I can’t really be upset with them.”

Seonghwa didn’t reply at first, simply scrawling on a notecard for a moment before looking over again, though he did scrunch his nose at Hongjoong using “trysts” aloud in a sentence. “Ever considered they’re not in our timezone?” he said, and it felt like he’d dropped an entire Chinese history anthology on the ground, the words colliding with Hongjoong’s perceived reality with a visceral boom. 

Hongjoong’s lips parted, early-morning brain stuttering with the possibility. He’d thought about his soulmate for years and it had honestly, truly never occurred to him.

“Oh my god. I’m an asshole.”

Seonghwa rolled his eyes, “No you’re not.” and went back to his textbook. “And you can totally blame them. You’re entitled to your feelings.”

* * *

Most of the time, Hongjoong was of the same opinion—especially when he woke up and felt like someone had slammed his body full of cement made with bog water. His circadian rhythm wasn’t excellent even when he was left to his own devices, but this regular sleep-deprivation was making him incredibly batty.

Mingi, for instance, had to deliberately prevent Hongjoong from accidentally throwing his wallet in the trash instead of the empty coffee he’d chugged.

“How are you going to find them?” Mingi said, in temporary possession of the wallet as Hongjoong tugged his jacket on again.

Hongjoong froze with his left arm threaded halfway through his sleeve, Seonghwa’s words pinging through his blood like poison. _Ever considered they’re not in our timezone?_

“Uh,” he said. “Not sure. How about you?”

Mingi ran his fingers through his hair, then tugged at his turtleneck. “Look for anyone snarky and confident and passive-aggressive?” he said, eyes crinkling in something like pain behind his glasses.

Hongjoong couldn’t help the laugh of disbelief traipsing up his windpipe. It made him cough. “Is that what they’re like? Mingi…”

“I know,” he groaned. “I know I know. I’ll never find them.”

It wasn’t like there was a shortage of people who fit those attributes—it was more that Mingi was somewhat timid around strangers. It wasn’t a great combination when you needed to approach people with actual presence.

“Maybe they’ll find you first,” Hongjoong said and took his wallet back to shove in his pocket.

“If my Tell is actually helpful, yeah,” Mingi replied, and looked with near-sympathy toward Hongjoong. Because his soulmate’s Tell was… absolutely not that. How did you find someone according to their energy levels? Pray your soulmate got excited enough to blow a fuse in your proximity?

He’d been fine with the thought of never finding his soulmate for a long time—some people never did, and they lived perfectly content lives (supposedly). He was _less_ fine with being kept up for four hours every night. Especially when it coincided perfectly with testing season.

God.

* * *

"I failed."

_"You've never failed a test in your life,"_ Seonghwa said. _"Grilled cheese and tomato soup."_

"Right, right," Hongjoong said, hugging his phone to his ear with his shoulder as he repeated the order and passed over his money. "Who's going to tell your soulmate you hate mushrooms?"

_“Me, I hope. I hope this makes me forget I even had the phantom of one in my mouth what the fuck."_

Hongjoong laughed and made his way over to the service counter to wait for his order to finish, yawning into the phone's speaker against his will.

_"Take a nap when you get back."_

"I have to study," Hongjoong said, putting his wallet away and rubbing at his eyes with his free hands.

_"Study when they're keeping you up like a madman."_

Hongjoong hummed and found he could accept that option. It’s what he had ended up doing anyway, lately, and he couldn’t keep fighting through the sleep deprivation just to try to preserve some arbitrary schedule. 

He reached out to accept Seonghwa's order and his own applewood smoked sandwich. "Yeah alright. See you soon."

* * *

Aside from the sleepless nights, finals passed largely without a hitch and, like a switch, the adrenaline-filled nights stopped.

"I don't think they're in a different timezone," Hongjoong said. "It's too much coincidence. Although that was really new." His soulmate had never done something like that before—ordinarily, he'd just get a punch of adrenaline more regularly during finals (presumably when they were also taking tests). In fact, up until the time Seonghwa had suggested something different, Hongjoong had hoped this kid went to the very same university.

"I've got nothing," Seonghwa admitted, stretching out onto his upper bunk and staring at the ceiling with morose dejection. "Joong-ah, I want to meet them so bad. They're so fucking stupid why do they eat so much weird shit."

"Just because you're picky doesn't mean they eat weird shit. They probably ate a mango or something," Hongjoong reasoned, trying to organize the cords for his recording equipment. 

He was grateful he was assuredly not Seonghwa's soulmate. Not that they weren't technically compatible—a tarot reading they'd done their first years had loosely convinced them they were a good match for each other (in a way). It was more like Seonghwa was his best friend and that was about as intimate as Hongjoong could personally handle with him. He already knew what color underwear Seonghwa wore each night to bed.

Seonghwa sighed. "They're going to make me adventurous. Hate that."

"Blasphemy. How dare they. Oh, I got it!" Hongjoong stood up, admiring the neatened lines of his setup. It had gotten all higgledy-piggledy during finals—he hadn't so much as touched his music, but he'd had a song ready to put up on Spotify for weeks just for the post-exam occasion.

"Nice," Seonghwa said, genuinely appreciative from the perspective of his tidy-fixated mind. “Is it the one I’ve heard already?”

“The one I’m uploading today?” Hongjoong clarified, plunking himself in their shared desk chair. “Yep. Pray for me.”

“I’m atheist.”

“Do it anyway.”

* * *

He woke up at three in the morning on the brink of a panic attack, choking on the same air he’d been breathing in shallow sleep two seconds prior. 

“Mars. Mars—_Mars!” _Hongjoong’s fingertips scrabbled at the sheets as he tried to just keep from hyperventilating. When Seonghwa slipped off the top bunk and fell to his feet, Hongjoong almost squeaked from the suddenness, but then Seonghwa’s lanky body was lying atop him. Somehow, despite his breathing being physically restricted, all the panic become a lot easier to handle.

“Tell your soulmate to cut it out,” Seonghwa murmured, hugging Hongjoong close. “Gotta live through the night.”

“Why’re they panicking?” Hongjoong tried to breathe reason into his body with the grounding weight of Seonghwa atop him, but still struggled. His heart was beating so hard it seemed as big as his entire chest cavity, pounding on the cell bars of his ribs. “What’s wrong? Are they okay?” The tears were starting to come from instinct alone, muddied further by the grogginess of his mind. He’d never reacted well to panic.

“Could be anything. Let it go. We can worry about it in the morning.”

“What if they’re hurt?”

“They might be.”

“Mars—”

“Can’t do anything about it.”

Distantly, in the back of his mind, Hongjoong remembered the time Seonghwa had dissolved into hysterics when he’d suddenly tasted a mouthful of blood. Even mushrooms didn’t have him retching into the toilet bowl like he had that evening.

Hongjoong hugged him back.

* * *

It was about a week until Hongjoong felt a single thing from his soulmate again, and for a moment, he almost thought it was his own random nerves as he tried to decide between heirloom carrots and normal carrots. His fingers were prickling with energy, shaking very slightly as he reached for the normal carrots, and he hesitated.

Mingi looked down at him, plastic bag ready for whatever Hongjoong chose.

“Hyung?”

“Soulmate.”

“Oh.” Mingi almost sank with relief, knowing full well how much of a mess Hongjoong had been while waiting for some sign his soulmate was still kicking. Hongjoong closed his eyes and inhaled, exhaled, then moved on as his chest got a little less tight from simply _knowing_.

“Well,” Hongjoong said, and bit the inside of his cheek to resist smiling. He dumped four purple carrots in the bag. “They’re alive.”

* * *

Later while in the checkout lane, he would see the social media notification buried under all the other alerts he had from his phone. It was a request from a non-mutual on Twitter, the only thing said being, “Hey. I think you might be my soulmate.”

He dropped his phone.

The screen cracked into oblivion.

* * *

It took him what felt like ages to get home and onto his computer, and it demanded an extreme amount of effort to contain himself. Mingi had been invited to simply hover around as Hongjoong descended into a frantic, anxious attempt to communicate back to his soulmate as soon as possible (potential soulmate, hopefully soulmate).

Mingi sat cross-legged on Hongjoong’s bunk, mixing his black bean noodles and staring at the laptop screen as Hongjoong fluttered his fingers over the trackpad, begging his computer to be faster, come on, why was it so slow?

“Please don’t break your computer,” Mingi said, watching with trepidation as Hongjoong’s legs started to quiver with energy.

“I might.”

“But you shouldn’t,” he said through a mouthful of noodles, and Hongjoong flapped his hand at him to tell him to just focus on eating because Twitter was loading and he needed to focus.

There were now two more messages since the first one, and Hongjoong forced himself to read from the top:

> Hey. I think you might be my soulmate.
> 
> I could totally be wrong, but you released a song the other day that I’ve been hearing in my head for months. And I just… I hear my soulmate’s music? I guess? That’s my soulmate’s Tell. I hear the music in their (your?) head and I was hearing it before it even got released. And if it’s not you, then maybe it’s one of your friends?
> 
> I’ve been trying to find them for years. And even if they’re not you, I do want to say that your music’s really amazing. Sorry to bother.

Hongjoong sucked in a breath and tried not to scream—he didn’t often have the urge to do something like that, so it was a difficult thing to swallow, but he did. He freed his fingers, breathed, and successfully did _not _scream.

“Is it them?” Mingi asked, but did not hover and did not encroach on the messages. He was nosy but not Like That.

“Maybe,” Hongjoong said when he wanted to say, “Probably.” He wouldn’t allow himself to get his hopes up. Not yet. The song he’d released had been listened to by Seonghwa ages ago, and if this person possessed an even slightly skewed sense of time, they could have missed the mark. In fact, they could have a really terrible ear for music. Hongjoong put a lot of effort into making his music unique, but that didn’t mean that whatever he created couldn’t possibly be mistaken for something else.

He waited until the urge to scream subside entirely before replying.

> Maybe! Are you on rn? We could test it.

It was only after sending the message that he realized he’d been blushing since reading the last message the other had sent. When he looked over at Mingi, his friend had half a mouthful of noodles past his lips and was staring at him.

“Are you blushing?” he asked, though it was hard to be sure given the food clogging his articulation.

“Yes,” Hongjoong replied, immediately miserable by the admittance.

Mingi chewed quickly and swallowed. “Stop that. You don’t know if it’s them yet, right?”

Hongjoong shook his head. He knew where Mingi was coming from, but he rather thought he’d react like this if anyone at all complimented his music. He did, actually, blush on the regular whenever someone was even remotely encouraging. “They just complimented my music.”

“Oh.”

He pillowed his head on his arms and watched for the blue checkmark to light up. He refused to investigate the person’s account until they did a quick trial—he didn’t want to know them until he was sure. He got attached easily. It was a problem he’d learned to navigate.

“Can I look?” Mingi asked, and Hongjoong nodded, hair mussing against the sleeves of his shirt. The checkmark was still a pathetic grey as Mingi leaned on the back of Hongjoong’s chair and read over the messages. “You released another song?”

For the smallest moment, Hongjoong thought Mingi was actually serious, but when he turned to stare at him, there was that scrunchy, tell-tale grin, so he laughed and whacked his arm. “God.”

“They’re right. Your music is amazing.”

The blush returned. “Thank you, Mingi-yah.”

* * *

The checkmark didn’t turn blue for ages, in fact. Long enough that Mingi offered up his phone to call Seonghwa.

“They’re either my soulmate or yours. Or really don’t know their music,” Hongjoong said into the speaker. He was sprawled on his bunk with Mingi, which was honestly quite the feat. Boy was lankier than Seonghwa.

_“If they don’t know how to tell one song from the other then I wouldn’t want them to be my soulmate anyway,”_ Seonghwa said, sounding a little breathless if only because he was speed walking back to the dorms. _“I won’t date anyone with a shitty ear.”_

Hongjoong muffled his laugh in his pillow and glanced back at his computer, which they’d relocated to the head of his mattress. 

His heart stuttered upon seeing the tiny hint of blue and he held his breath.

When a set of ellipses blinked into existence in their dm, the bed squeaked with the impact of Hongjoong springing to his knees.

> Sure!
> 
> Think of a song and I’ll take a guess? Lmk when you do it though and make it kind of obscure? I’ll do my best.

“They asked me to think of a song,” Hongjoong said for Seonghwa’s benefit only, Mingi having already taken a good squint at his screen since he took his glasses off.

_“Sounds good. You think of something that’s not Michael Jackson. I have ‘Thriller’ in my head.”_

Nodding, Hongjoong settled cross-legged onto his comforter and shook out his hair, trying to settle on something with clear lyrics.

> K I’m thinking of it now.

The checkmark went blue, but there was nothing for at least ten seconds. Only after that amount of time did the ellipses shudder onscreen, appearing, disappearing, appearing, disappearing, and Hongjoong would laugh if he wasn’t focusing so hard on the singular song.

Mingi was utterly still, as if a single movement would break the possible red thread between Hongjoong and this stranger.

> Is it
> 
> Is it the backstreet boys
> 
> Like
> 
> Really loud backstreet boys
> 
> I like it that way~ song?

Hongjoong _did_ scream this time, and Mingi startled near out of his skin.

_“Holy shit what the fuck, Joong-ah?” _Seonghwa questioned, genuine alarm whipping through his voice.

“He got it right!” he could hear himself spill out even as his mind filled with white noise. Hongjoong crawled off the bed and allowed himself to collapse to the floor, wiggling all the sparks out of his limbs before they set him on fire. “Oh my god!” It was then that the laughter overtook him. 

In the very beginning, he wondered if putting his music out there would help his soulmate find him somehow—making himself more present and able to be seen. But he’d never expected that it would actually work.

Mingi picked up his computer and shook it at him to get his attention, screen wobbling a little in his big hands. “You have to reply!”

_“You screamed but didn’t reply?”_

Hongjoong scrambled to his knees again and reached for his computer. He felt both hot and cold all at once.

> You’re my soulmate!!!
> 
> You got it right!!!!!!!!

> Oh haha wait really
> 
> You’re serious?

With a bang, the door to his dorm room slammed open, and Mingi yelped again from the rapid-fire frights. Seonghwa, out of breath, threw his phone onto Hongjoong’s bed and dumped everything he was holding onto the floor. “Get his number!” he said immediately. “Call him! Find out where he is!”

“My phone’s broken!” Hongjoong said, scrambling a little to not be in Seonghwa’s way.

For a moment, Seonghwa’s confused, judgmental face appeared, but then it was gone. “Borrow my phone then. I don’t care. Get his number, now!”

Hongjoong opened his mouth to reply, but then his soulmate was typing again.

> Are you in Korea?
> 
> Your name is Kim Hongjoong, right?

> Yeah! Yeah I am.
> 
> What’s your name?

His fingers felt numb as he’d clambered out that reply, breath held with the row of dots that gave away the other’s jump to respond.

> Jung Wooyoung ^^

* * *

Seonghwa pulled Mingi to the local boba cart so Hongjoong could have alone time on the borrowed phone. 

Right off the bat, he knew Wooyoung identified as male, and he did go to his same university, but was majoring in Exercise Science (Hongjoong was in the Humanities, so the academic separation between them was quite distinct). He was younger than Hongjoong, but only by a year. He was from Ilsan, and very much liked music, so Hongjoong’s Tell was hardly a problem. He thought he had good music taste, too. 

His personality was bright even over the phone.

_“That song you released. ‘Aurora’? It drove me insane for months because I couldn’t find it anywhere. The amount of music I’ve listened to in order find you—oh my god.”_

“I’ve published my other works before!” Hongjoong was grinning, still not he floor and lying on his stomach as he kicked his feet. “You couldn’t find those?”

_“To be totally real with you, I thought you’d be bigger than just some college artist. Like I thought you were a solo idol or something. Your music is amazing. I was so scared you were a producer and you were just, like, creating all these potential songs and not a single one was actually put out there.”_

Hongjoong barely hiccuped a breath around the butterflies bursting from their chrysalises in his chest. “Oh—”

_“I was really excited with this one because it stuck? And I had whole lines of lyrics. Oh my god you’re such a beautiful writer. I wrote all the ones I heard out. It took like… a whole month. And I know it sounds dumb but I sang it every night into Naver to see if I could find you but I still couldn’t find you.”_

With his face in his hands now, all he could do was groan and then maybe laugh, the emotions he was feeling too diverse and numerous for him to follow a particular one for a response. “You sing?” Hongjoong managed to ask.

Wooyoung laughed. _“Not well, but yeah.”_

“Bet that’s some real bullshit.”

This time, Wooyoung _laughed_. It was loud and so, so bright. It was a little high—his whole voice pitched in the sweet tenor range, and Hongjoong would bet his life he had a nice singing voice. _“Well, I’ll trust your judgement, but you’ll have to wait to hear me. I won’t do it in the first hour of knowing you.”_

Before Hongjoong’s thoughts could get too muddled on that thought, he blurted, “I have a question.”

_“Yeah okay. Go for it!”_

“What on earth were you doing from eleven to three in the morning during finals week?”

_“What?” _Wooyoung went silent for a breath (a breath Hongjoong didn’t personally take), and then,_ “Wait. Shit. What’s my Tell?”_

* * *

“Oh, I hate this,” Hongjoong decided immediately.

Wooyoung looked at him with the hint of a crooked smile, eyes aglitter. “You can stop anytime. You just kind of sit down.”

“Yeah see. That’s the worst part.”

Wooyoung laughed, adjusting his straps one more time before putting a practiced foot up on the first hold.

In front of them was the most massive climbing wall Hongjoong had ever seen, and it was definitely also the _worst_ thing he’d ever seen.

Turned out Wooyoung didn’t sleep well when he was stressed, so he would go to the gym and climb this goddamn wall for hours until he was tired enough to pass out. (“I’d listen to audiobooks or videos for my classes first, and then when I got through those, I’d listen to all the new artists on Spotify and YouTube I could get my hands on. Sometimes SoundCloud.”) As one of the managers for the facility, he had some rights to visit the place even after hours so long as he logged his presence (“The cameras are on just to make sure I’m not a terrible person.”)

Somehow the fact that the entire place was practically empty and also a little dark from the partial lighting made the entire wall look so much more daunting. The whole facility smelled slightly of chlorine from the pools just beyond the glass, the floor plan so open that anyone could be watching them—how Wooyoung had the nerves to do this _alone _was beyond Hongjoong.

“If you reach the top with me, I’ll kiss you,” Wooyoung said, and winked, cheeky. But his expression turned solemn in the next second. “Just your cheek or hand, though. I don’t know you well enough yet.”

Hongjoong laughed, fighting the impulse to drift toward him and close the distance between them. He wrestled with the restrictive straps around his hips instead, movements kind of jerky and awkward (the way Wooyoung looked at him—just pure curiosity and fondness—made Hongjoong want to flop down and regain his breath). “And if I don’t?”

Wooyoung’s mouth pinched into a thoughtful pout. He was, frankly, beautiful. Somehow soft and sharp all at once with the confidence and humility to complement his duality. “I could kiss you anyway,” Wooyoung suggested.

Somehow already breathless, Hongjoong managed another, almost wheezy laugh. “You really want to kiss me? My hand?”

“Or cheek,” Wooyoung pointed out, and the smile that flipped on in his expression truly winded Hongjoong. “I fully intend to, uh, woo you. As it were.”

Hongjoong laughed, chest tightening around the little paper wings of the flutterings in his chest, and reached for a handhold. “If I get up there in ten minutes or less, I get to kiss you,” Hongjoong said, and didn’t dare to look for Wooyoung’s reaction. He simply looked at his watch for the time (11:37 P.M.) and heaved himself up the wall.

* * *

It took him thirteen minutes, knees shaking, back sweating, before he reached the top. At some point, Wooyoung had slowed down and placed a hand on his lower back to make him feel safer. It was a touch so respectful and cautious, Hongjoong could barely feel it (as conscious as he was that Wooyoung would be able to feel the dampness of his stress).

“Don’t tell me I can sit down I will _not_,” Hongjoong had gritted out between his teeth, gasping. He wasn’t particularly athletic, so there was nothing easy about this activity.

Wooyoung had swallowed a laugh and shaken his head. “Of course not,” he had murmured. “You’re doing great.”

When he’d pulled himself up onto the uppermost ledge of the wall, Wooyoung’s hand was gone and he scooted himself away a good three inches. 

Soulmates often felt they had every reason to hedge boundaries—to jump right in without hesitation and get straight to the point. Hongjoong understood that, and he hadn’t been afraid of that happening, but he had been ready to reassert his needs: take things slow, even if it feels like speed is on their side. Shoot for ten minutes, climb for thirteen.

“You owe me a kiss,” Hongjoong said, gasping a little as he tried to calm his breath. Wooyoung’s smile glowed.

“You did amazing. Was it so bad?” There was some sweat at Wooyoung’s hairline, just visible because he’d raked back his hair. He looked plain the way he’d made himself up—no trappings or glitter (“I didn’t want to go overboard meeting you. I wanted to look like me.”)—but he seemed so utterly soft and intense all at once.

Hongjoong swallowed his inhale and almost hiccuped as he shook his head, and Wooyoung stifled a laugh. “Would you do it again?” Wooyoung asked, but it looked like he was hesitating on something more. Hongjoong waited, eyebrows raised, and watched as a blush took over Wooyoung’s face like a pink watercolor wash. “Your—your butt looks cute in the harness.”

Hongjoong nearly fell off the wall.

* * *

He got his kiss when Wooyoung walked him back to campus, just a ghost’s whisper of a touch on his cheekbone when he’d gone to button up his coat all the way to his neck as the wind passed by.

“I’m sorry for keeping you up during finals,” Wooyoung said, hands in his pockets to hide from the cold. Hongjoong didn’t even care anymore. He might if it happened again, but it had worked out fine.

Hongjoong shrugged. “I passed my classes. I didn’t die.” He smiled, now, and leaned in to return the favor, kissing Wooyoung’s cheek. Because he could and he knew it would keep him awake all night far more effectively than his anxious soulmate could if he didn't. “I have another question,” he said as he watched Wooyoung’s ears color beyond simply the chilled pink.

“Okay,” Wooyoung said, voice pitchy, but it didn’t break.

“You had a panic attack a week ago,” Hongjoong said, “around three in the morning. Why?”

Wooyoung exhaled, breath clouding in the air between them. “That’s when I found your song.” A smile tilted its way into Wooyoung’s mouth, just slightly self-deprecating. “And maybe I’d found you, and I didn’t know what to do. I don’t deal well with pressure.” His laugh was small. “I’m sorry I took a week to get around to it.”

He wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but it wasn’t that, and he hadn’t expected to feel as warm as he did at the confession. Hongjoong bunched further into his coat and smiled. “One week won’t hurt in the grand scheme of things,” he hummed. “I’m just glad you’re okay.”

The self-deprecating smile turned bright, and Hongjoong thought that in such a short amount of time, he already knew he liked the bright one most. 

“I’ve never been more okay, I think,” Wooyoung said, smile even brighter than before, and Hongjoong rather thought the universe picked his soulmate well.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you enjoyed! Please consider leaving a comment so I can hear your thoughts ^^
> 
> Happy birthday, Cal! I hope this is what you were looking for ♡ 
> 
>   
[twitter](https://twitter.com/speckledsolana)  
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